11/29/2006

It makes one wonder about whether there are those working within the Bush Administration that are, to all intents and purposes, fifth columnists for those who look upon America with disdain and, dare I say it, hatred.

I'm not talking about jihadis, harabahis, or militant Islamofascists. Instead, I'm talking about some of the elitists that harbor such ill will towards their own country that they are willing to do as much as they can to damage anyone they consider not one of us.

The timing of a leak of a White House memo that questions the efficacy of Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki could not have been a coincidence. It was leaked when it would do the most damage, causing a postponement of a summit between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Maliki. It was something that was not in the best interests of the United States or Iraq. Yet someone working inside the White House decided that it needed to be made public, and damn the consequences. Or worse, they knew exactly what they would be which is why they leaked it in the first place.

Someone in the White House has an agenda that does not match that of the Bush Administration and appears to be willing to cause embarrassment and diplomatic problems for the US regardless of the long term consequences. And should the miscreant be identified and their actions cause the deaths of American armed forces and innocent Iraqi civilians, they will most likely plead that they were doing it for the greater good. But it won't be for the greater good of Americans or Iraqis. Rather it will be for the greater good of the America-hating elitists that infest so much of the Left.

They may see themselves as patriots, but I see them for what they are – traitors. They give aid and comfort to sworn enemies of America and everything it stands for. Those enemies want to bring down the US and Western civilization. The traitors will applaud when it happens because they believe that we deserve it even though our enemies have committed far greater atrocities in the name of a twisted and morally bankrupt ideology that excuses even the most heinous acts. Of course they will applaud only until the time that those same enemies put them up against a wall and blow their brains out for being enemies of their twisted ideology. But like most of the Left, they can't see that far ahead. All they want to see is the downfall of someone they detest.

Am I being too harsh? Probably not. Am I being partisan? Damn right. I'm against anyone that wishes harm against this country, no matter who they are.

11/27/2006

As presidential hopeful John Edwards makes the rounds in an effort to drum up support, he has yet again shot himself in the foot.

The supporter of a number of anti-WalMart watchdog groups, most of which are organs of organized labor, first tripped up when a staffer tried to conjole WalMart in to making sure that Edwards got one of the few Sony Playstation 3's.

In an effort to show his disdain of the international retailer, Edwards scheduled a book signing in a Barnes & Noble in Manchester, NH. This particular B & N is located in front of a WalMart. So how is this a mis-step by Edwards?

"Wal-Mart makes plenty of money. They need to pay their people well," Edwards said at a Pittsburgh anti-Wal-Mart rally in August.

So naturally Edwards is holding his book signing at Barnes & Noble instead of Wal-Mart. Which is too bad for his anti-low-wages campaign, because in Manchester Wal-Mart pays hourly employees more than Barnes & Noble does.

The Barnes & Noble where Edwards will hawk his book pays $7 an hour to start. The Wal-Mart that sits just yards away pays $7.50 an hour.

Oh, the humanity!

So the presidential wannabe that has it in for WalMart because he believes that it doesn't pay its employees a fair wage instead patronizes a national retailer that pays its employees less than WalMart.

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I don't know how I managed to do this, but I've missed the last two episodes of Battlestar Galactica. The first, because I plain forgot to record it a week ago Friday. Second, because the electronic programming guide on Dish TV lied to me, showing that it wasn't on this past Friday...or at least not on at its usual time.

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I haven't written as much as I'd hoped to at this point, not because I have nothing to write about but because Hilda, the youngest of the three feline members of the household, insists on trying to help me out. It doesn't help when she blocks my view of the screen in an effort to point out where the cursor is located.

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John Stossel asks whether government should be mandating more liberal paid family leave, child care requirements, or mandatory flexible work schedules in order to meet the demands of working mothers.

His answer: No.

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The New England Patriots managed to beat the Chicago Bears, 17-13. It was an awesome game.

11/24/2006

I was listening to a rebroadcast of the Diane Rehm Show on NPR this morning as I was heading back home after dropping off BeezleBub for a weekend with a friend of his.

The first hour's topic was Muslims, the Veil, and the West, which covered the custom of Muslim women wearing head scarves or full veils. While some claim it is a religious requirement, the guests all quoted a number of respected Muslim scholars who said that nowhere in the Qu'ran does it say any such thing.

But one point was brought up by a caller and one of the guests about the imam in Australia making the statement about unveiled Muslim women being nothing more than 'uncovered meat'

If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.

This is what one could call a fallacious argument by bad analogy. First, that women are nothing more than uncovered meat. Second, that Muslim men are animals. Neither is true.

If Muslim men have no control over their passions, their emotions, or their vices, then they are truly weaker than men elsewhere. That's something I find very hard to believe. Yet here you have a Muslim cleric saying exactly that. And if it were so, then Islam would be doomed because it means that Muslim men would always give in to their baser instincts and would, indeed, become nothing more than animals. While there are some that do act in such a savage manner – like those in Al Qaeda and members of certain extremist Muslim militias - they are a minority.

11/20/2006

The US Treasury and US Mint are going to try, yet again , to make a One Dollar coin popular. This will be the third attempt in three decades to move people away from the dollar bill and towards the dollar coin.

The first attempt in the 1980's was a dismal failure. The Susan B. Anthony dollar looked too much like the quarter and was often mistaken for one.

The second attempt was shortly after the turn of the millennium with the Sacagawea dollar. It, too, was an unmitigated disaster, but for a different reason.

The geniuses in Congress and at the Treasury figure that releasing 4 different dollar coins every year with a different president's portrait on the face would garner interest just as the 50 state quarters have. But they won't. They haven't learned the lesson of Sacagawea dollar: any dollar coin will fail as long as the dollar bill is still in circulation.

It's time for the long lived dollar bill to go the way of the dodo. It is expensive to keep them in circulation due to their short survival time. The average dollar bill lasts less then 18 months in circulation before it's worn out. The average coin lasts 35 years. Even though coins cost twice as much to make as a dollar bill, they last 23 ½ times longer, meaning that after 3 years in circulation they've more than made up for the higher cost of their minting.

When will the government wise up and dump the dollar bill? If they don't, why waste time and taxpayer money to mint coins that people don't want and won't use?

I don't have to answer that question, do I? You already know the answer.

11/19/2006

Yesterday was a time of sprucing up The Manse in anticipation of the upcoming Thanksgiving gathering of the WP clan.

One thing that required quite a bit of work was cleaning up around the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove. I'd forgotten how messy they can be, requiring quite a bit more cleanup due to the ash. Of course it didn't help that on a prior emptying out of the accumulated ash BeezleBub thought he'd be clever and put some water in the bottom of the ash bucket to quench the coals. When the hot coals and ash hit the bottom of the bucket, the ensuing steam explosion spread ash all over the room, coating everything with a fine layer. That was part and parcel of the cleanup in the living room yesterday.

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Captain Ed gets into the lengthy debate about global warming, opining that instead of a drastic warm-up we might be heading for another “Little Ice Age” like the one that we suffered between the 1300's and 1850.

Ed started by quoting Reuters about the 'disappointing' hurricane season and how they failed to mention global warming, unlike during last year's record hurricane season. How quickly they forget.

One commenter to Ed's post nailed it right on the head.

Oh Ed, global warming causes global warming, except when it doesn't, which is when it causes hurricanes, and other times the Seminoles. Don't you understand that? It was global warming undid the ancient Mayans. They lived on frozen french fries, made from potatoes donated by the Irish in County Derry. When the wind patterns changed, the coracles of the Irish were blown off course, and the Irish landed in Ireland in the 6th century BC, just in time to become Druids, conveniently later converted to Christianity by Saint Patrick, himself blown off course in a global warming caused storm as a 'yout' and enslaved by the Romans, whose galleys would reach Britain years later. They would have crossed the English Channel in operation "See, Lyin' " in 482, except it hadn't quite warmed up enough for the glaciers to melt, so they walked. However at the same time off the Coast of Chile, people who lived only on clams were inventing Guiness (sic) to drink with their clams. But global warming frustrated their attempts to make glass, so they left Chile in balsa wood rafts, left their giant carvings on Easter Island and became Polnesians (sic). The plaques beneath the statues, proving all this are in a sub-basement of the Vatican to this day.

So there!

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Emily at it comes in pints? brings up one of the most annoying things about people that insist on using the cell phones no matter what. The fact that this incident pushed her past the breaking point only illustrates that it's gotten worse as the damn things have become ubiquitous.

Some people seem to have their cell phones permanently grafted to one ear or one hand, making it impossible for them to put them down or hang them up. It also makes it impossible for them to pay attention to whatever it is they're supposed to be doing.

While I am no technophobe (hell, I'm an engineer!), I don't like the damn things. While we do have one, or more accurately Deb has one, I rarely use it. I refuse to carry one. The closest I come to something like that is a pager, and that one was given to me by a state agency that I work for on a part time basis.

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As far as I'm concerned, a poor FDA decision and a lawsuit based upon junk science have been reversed. Now if Dow could only get its money back....

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The New England Patriots shut out the Green Bay Packers in Green Bay, 35-0. It didn't help that Brett Favre was playing hurt, with bad ankles and a possible injury to one of his elbows during a sack. I like that the Pats beat the Packers. I only wish that it had been more of a game.

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There has been considerable controversy about what has been called the “view tax” here in New Hampshire, something I've covered before here, here and here.

Now the so-called view tax is hurting even more people, particularly farmers. One in particular has seen his property taxes go up from ~$22,000 to $70,000 per year in one year. While his property has a nice view and would be worth millions to a developer, he runs an orchard that has been in business for 242 years. But it won't be in business much longer.

How did a 242-year-old orchard have its property taxes jump by $50,000? A little thing called the view tax.

[...]

The view tax as applied is rapidly destroying agricultural land and family estates across New Hampshire. If local or state officials do not act, there won't be any hillside farmland left in the state.

[...]

Gould Hill Orchard has been around longer than the United States. In all those 242 years, the owners never had to destroy the orchard to pay their tax bill. Now that appears likely.

The view tax is a historical aberration. Its shockingly high assessments cannot be sustained. Eventually it will have to be reconceived to bring property values more in line with reality. It would be a travesty if, in the meantime, the trees of Gould Hill Orchards fall to the cold steel teeth of the developer's bulldozer.

The view tax is something that is applied arbitrarily and is totally subjective. Taxing agricultural land as if it were residential property is madness. Tacking on the ever more hated view tax is adding insult to injury. If the various revenue-hungry town governments don't watch it they may end up taxing themselves right out of their jobs.

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The Dems are making a bonehead move, pushing to reinstate the military draft. Charles Rangel (D-NY) is trying to force the draft, not out of the kindness of his heart but to drum up even more anger and resentment towards the war in Iraq. This is nothing new for him as he's tried this once before, claiming that too many minorities were serving on the front lines. This was proven to be patently false and the bill he filed back then languished in committee and died a lonely death.

He and the Dems are trying to recreate the domestic conditions that existed during the Vietnam War and the quickest way to do that is to reinstitute the draft.

What a putz.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where road traffic has dropped considerably since the summer folk and leaf peepers have left until next year, thoughts of snow are still in the future, and where preparations for Thanksgiving are in full swing.

11/17/2006

The latest anti-WalMart brouhaha has certainly left one presidential hopeful with egg on his face (or at least on the face of a soon to be ex-staffer).

The ever more shrill condemnation of WalMart by organized labor fronts is getting old. I don't know about you, but the longer WalMart can keep these thugs from moving in on their business and taking money from the pockets of WalMart employees, the better I'll like it. And before you get your knickers in a twist, be mindful that I was a union member (IBEW) for almost 20 years. What I saw over that time changed my mind about organized labor, making me wonder whether it had outlived its usefulness. Seeing what the organized labor front organizations have been trying to do to WalMart has only strengthened that belief. They aren't interested in representing the workers because of the way they're allegedly being mistreated (such allegations made by the unions, not by WalMart employees), but rather because of the hundreds of million of dollars they will collect in union dues should they succeed in their efforts to unionize WalMart.

Union membership has been dropping at a precipitous rate and union leaders are looking for ways to bolster the ranks of organized labor. An influx of hundreds of millions of dollars will help them do to WalMart what they've done to GM, Ford, and Chrysler.

11/16/2006

There should be two Supreme Courts, one to reverse the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the other to hear all other cases. Last term, more of the Supreme Court's caseload -- 18 of 82 cases (22 percent) -- came from the liberal 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, than from any other circuit, and the 9th was reversed in 15 of the 18. The 9th's winning percentage (.167) was worse than that of the 1962 Mets (.250).

Will goes on to delve into the case of Fernando Belmontes where the Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit Court (no surprise there). The Ninth Circuit had overturned the death penalty given to Belmontes for a brutal murder he'd committed 25 years ago. The Supremes weren't buying the argument.

Murtha and Hoyer fought a bitter and brutal battle for the majority-leader post. Hoyer had long been running for the job, raising money for Democratic candidates. He counted on the support of many veteran lawmakers as well as most of the incoming freshman class.

Murtha had Pelosi, and her loyal allies who applied pressure -- too much pressure, according to some -- to give her the second-in-command of her choosing. But the secret ballot vote wasn't even close: 149 to 86 in favor of Hoyer.

I believe Mrs. Pelosi has learned the first lesson of her new post: Just because you're now in a position of power doesn't mean you'll be able to bully those under you to get your way.

I was listening to an NPR report on the way home when I heard Ted Koppel make one of the more profound observations in regards to Iran and its nuclear program. While I can't quote it verbatim, it did make me think, “Of course, how could I have been so blind!”

Could it possibly be that simple? My gut tells me yes. The nuclear issue is just so much smoke and mirrors. It obligates the mad mullahs to do nothing. However, if the world started hammering them on their abysmal human rights record, the mullahs would have no place to hide. Their violations of basic human rights would be exposed for the world to see. They might actually have to do something about them, loosen their iron grip on the populace and cease their predations upon the dissidents.

Nope, it's easier for them to muddy up the water and move forward with their nuclear ambitions, even if they truly have no plans to develop nuclear weapons.

11/14/2006

I had some conflicting thoughts about linking to this post, which brings up the oh-so-wonderful plans to make America's health care system over into some kind of copy of the ever more useless health care systems as seen in Canada or the UK or a host of other nations with 'nationalized' health care.

The numerous comments brought up a number of valid points, criticisms, and ideas of how to fix our health care system, assuming that any attempt at a system wide fix won't just make things worse.

Having been part of the health care system many years ago, with other family members either having retired from health care or still deeply involved working in health care, I think I can safely say that there are a number of factors that affect the cost and availability of medical care in the US.

-1- Paperwork: Probably the biggest burden every medical practice suffers. While moves have been made to streamline the mountains of paperwork involved with medical care by using information technology, there's still a lot of room for improvement.

-2- Malpractice Insurance: Between the premiums squeezing some practitioners out of their specialties, OB/GYN being the most prevalent, and doctor's taking a defensive posture by ordering more tests to back up their diagnoses in case they're sued, it's no wonder costs keep going up.

-3- Health Insurance: Medical costs didn't start skyrocketing until health insurance became readily available to the masses. Office visits and procedures became far more expensive once a majority of people had health insurance. See #1 above.

-4- Medical Technology: New equipment and procedures that didn't exist 20 years ago are here today, and they aren't cheap. It doesn't help that many patients demand the latest/greatest/best when it comes to their treatment, even if some of the older proven remedies and treatments are just as effective. While this might not be a large factor (though it probably is), it is one thing that most people don't think about when they complain about health care costs.

There are plenty more factors to look into, including the lack of preventative medicine. It's far less expensive to take action before something becomes a problem than after. Unfortunately many people take poor care of themselves and then expect the doctors to bail them out once things go wrong. At that point it's always more expensive to fix the problem.

Some may say that some kind of national health care system will fix the problem, but from what I've seen of other countries I would much prefer that my doctor figure out a course of treatment for me than some faceless government bureaucrat that does not have my best interests at heart.

11/13/2006

Every so often citified attitudes intrude upon our little portion of New Hampshire. Sometimes it can be something about the food at a local restaurant or the lack of certain items at the village store. Most times this “city folk” attitude is minor in nature, garnering a few amused glances in the direction of the offender. Sometimes the offense is over the top, generating a lot of bad feelings on part of the offended and the offender. And at times the offense lies somewhere between those two extremes. Today was one of those times.

I, as many in out little town, drop of my son in front of his school weekday mornings while I am on my way to work. It is not inconvenient for me as I pass right by his school on my way to work.

One of the things that helps keep traffic flowing smoothly mornings as we drop our kids off at school is that the exit from the school allows right turns only. This keeps things from getting jammed up as there won't be anyone waiting to make a left turn across traffic in order to leave. Someone waiting to make a left turn will stop the dropping-off-the-kids process dead in its tracks because no one else will be able to enter the drop off lane until they leave.

For the most part everyone makes the right turn at the exit. But not everyone.

This morning was a perfect example.

BeezleBub and I followed a woman driving a Subaru Forester into the drop off entrance. Her young charge got out of the car, slung their backpack over one shoulder, closed the car door and charged towards the front door of the school. As BeezleBub was getting out of our car the woman drove off towards the exit. Once our car door was closed and BeezleBub was well on his way into the school, I followed her.

She stopped at the exit looking to see if traffic was coming. I expected her to make the right turn, just like everyone else. But instead she pulled forward a foot or so, stopped next to the No Left Turn sign, and put on her turn signal. The left turn signal.

A line of school buses was coming from the left, entering the bus lane to drop of the rest of the kids at the school. Traffic was starting to back up as ever more impatient parents waited to get into the drop off lane. But they couldn't because the witless woman in the Subaru insisted on making her left turn. She sat there waiting to make the left turn for over 5 minutes, tying up traffic. It would have taken her less than a minute to make the right turn, go to the next street, make a right, go to the next intersection and take another right to get to the same place she wasted all that time waiting to make her all so important left turn.

This is the type of behavior I might expect from city folk, figuring that the laws don't apply to them. If I had to guess, she was a flatlander who brought her big city attitude to a small town and managed to piss off a lot of people in the process, all to no good. Her thoughtless need to make a left turn inconvenienced over 100 people, tied up traffic, broke at least one traffic law, and may have made a number of people late for work or school.

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BeezleBub and Deb were out of town yesterday, leaving me by myself here at The Manse. Not that I sat around and did nothing all day.

There was still a little winter storage prep work to do on The Boat, some of which did get done. There was also some paperwork to deal with, mostly for health care reimbursements (even when everyone in the family are all healthy, out of pocket medical expenses still add up...even with medical insurance). Then it was working on reports for some consulting work I do on the side. I also did some software upgrades on the Official Weekend Pundit Computer Systems and installed some new audio editing software and attempted to install some video editing software as well, but with less success. (BeezleBub has shot hours of digital video, but the editing software that came with his video camera is clunky, lame, and doesn't let you burn the resulting video on to a separate DVD. Any suggestions for simple freeware/shareware editing suites out there?)

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With all of the talk in the past about the schedule for the 2008 Presidential primaries and how the DNC has reshuffled and front-loaded the schedule, how come I haven't heard mention of the RNC in regards to this? Doesn't the Republican Party have some say about the schedule? Can the RNC schedule its own primaries on different dates, with consent of the various states? How much say do the various states Secretary of State have in regards to elections of this type?

I ask this because, in my opinion, the compressed schedule laid out by the DNC means that only those candidates with deep pockets will have a shot at gaining their party's nomination. The candidate with a small campaign war-chest will be at a disadvantage when most campaigns will be reduced to 15-, 30-, or 60-second TV and radio ads and full page newspaper ads. Candidates will no long have time to meet face-to-face with the electorate, making retail politicking that has long been a requirement to do well in an election a thing of the past. How can a voter make up their mind about which candidate they will vote for if all they have to go on are the slick ads they'll be bombarded with? The less well-known candidate will be drowned out, even if he/she is the better candidate. We saw a lot of that during the 2004 campaign, which is why the Democrats ended up with John Kerry as their nominee. I think that even the long time Democrats have to agree that he was probably the worst candidate they could have put up against George W. Bush.

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What would a real "war for oil" look like? Well, US troops would have sped to the oilfields with everything we had. Everything we had. Then, secure convoy routes would have been established to the nearest port – probably Basra – and the US Navy would essentially line the entire gulf with wall-to-wall warships in order to ensure the safe passage of US-flagged tankers into and out of the region.

There would have been no overland campaign – what for? – and no fight for Baghdad. Fallujah and Mosul and all those other trouble spots would never even see an American boot. Why? No oil there. The US Military would do what it is extraordinarily well-trained to do: take and hold a very limited area, and supply secure convoys to and from this limited area on an ongoing basis. Saddam could have stayed if he wanted: probably would have saved us a lot of trouble, and the whole thing would have become a sort of super no-fly zone over the oil fields, ports and convoy routes, and the devil take the rest of it. Sadr City IED deaths? Please. What the f**k does Sadr City have that we need?

That’s what a war for oil would look like. It’s entirely possible that such an operation could have been accomplished and maintained without a single American fatality.

Coexist!

Who can argue with this? Not me, certainly.

What I CAN argue with is the idea that if only enough stupid, warlike Americans would just get on the Coexist train, then the world would be a happy and peaceful garden. Who else are the people with these bumper stickers preaching to, if not their ill-informed, knuckle-dragging neocon fellow commuters?

Unfortunately, here’s where reality inserts its ugly head. There is no more multi-cultural society on earth than the United States. The United States owns the patent on Coexisting religions and ethnicities. Drive half a mile though any major US urban area and you will see more ancient ethnic enemies living cheek by jowl in harmony than any other spot on the planet. Thursday morning water cooler conversations about Dancing with the Stars wallpaper over more ancient ethnic and religious murders than history has been able to record, and this despite Hollywood and the news media’s deepest efforts to remind you on a daily basis that the black or Hispanic or Asian or white friend in the next cube is secretly seething with racial hatred just beneath that placid veneer.

Americans are able to coexist because they have subjugated, if not abandoned, those ancient religious and ethnic hatreds to join a larger family, that larger family being America. And this is why, if you truly value the idea of coexistence, you should be dead set against multi-cultural grievance and identity politics, which do nothing but pit one ethnic group against the others and reinforce, rather than dilute, ancient resentments and grievances.

Now as it turns out, there is one member of the human family that seems to be having a little difficulty with the whole coexist thing. Muslims are at war with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are fighting Animists in Africa, Hindus in Kashmir, Buddhists in Southeast Asia…they are blowing up nightclubs and schools and police stations and trains and buses and skyscrapers and are under daily orders to kill Jews on sight anywhere in the world.

I don’t mind preaching so much as preaching to the choir. When I see Coexist bumper stickers in Islamabad and Cairo and especially Riyadh to the degree I see them in Venice, California, I will be a happy man. They will make a very welcome sight covering over the Death to the Infidel! stickers that seem to be somewhat outselling Coexist messages in that part of the world. Until then I think we should coexist and carry a big stick.

That's merely two of the many points that Bill discusses. As the saying goes, “Read the whole thing!!”

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An article in today's Sunday Citizen (Laconia, NH) reports that the year long housing slump will end in another year, with prices dropping a bit more before they start rising again.

That's all well and good. But to look at the tax assessment for The Manse, you'd think that the assessor had missed the news that housing prices have fallen since April 2005. In one year the assessed value of The Manse rose 20%! Something doesn't seem right to me. It's also apparent from this article that others in our town are thinking the same thing.

The recent sale of homes at prices well below their assessed values has led to questions about the accuracy of property valuations in town.

Selectmen Connie Grant said mid-sized homes have been selling below the assessed values. She suggested that the Board of Selectmen consider having a town-wide property revaluation to see if over-assessed properties are the rule or the exception.

After talking to a number of townsfolk, I believe that over-valued assessments are the rule, not the exception. Having knowledge about the sale prices of some homes within my neighborhood and their assessed values, all of them sold for considerably less than the assessments. One home three lots down from The Manse has been up for sale for nine months, for the same price as we paid for The Manse over a year ago. Both places are comparable in size, land, amenities, and both were assessed last year within a couple of thousand dollars of each other. The other day I see that they've reduced the asking price by $25,000. Yet their assessment is $75,000 higher than the new asking price. That tells me that the new assessments are way off, at least in this neighborhood.

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I don't know who those guys wearing the Patriots uniforms were, but they didn't seem like the Patriots team I've watched the past 10 weeks. Only during the the last minute of the first quarter and nine minutes into the fourth quarter did they seem like the Patriots. The rest of the time they played like third stringers, losing to the New York Jets, 17-13. What a painful game to watch.

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It came to me only this morning that Thanksgiving is a week and a half away.

I think of all of the holidays that Thanksgiving is my favorite. There isn't the hype of so many other holidays. It hasn't been commercialized all out of proportion. I remember far more Thanksgiving holidays over the years than Christmas, New Year's, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, or any other holiday. There's something about it that I can't easily explain.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the once bustling streets have finally quieted down, the summer cottages and camps are deserted, and where the serious family cooks are already working on their Thanksgiving menus.

11/09/2006

The celebrations by newly elected Democrats has barely subsided and already the 2008 presidential hopefuls are hitting the campaign trail.

Two candidates have announced that they are running – Governor Tom Vilsack (D-Iowa) and Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA). I expect to be seeing them in New Hampshire any day now, along with ever growing multitude of the non-declared and undecided wannabes.

11/08/2006

While my first reaction the the Democratic sweep in New Hampshire and the nation was one of “We better hold on to our wallets and guns,” I was heartened by the remarks of a Democratic political analyst.

Norm Demers, long a figure in Democratic circles in New Hampshire, made one of the most telling statements during an analysis of the elections last night on the local ABC affiliate, WMUR. While I don't remember the statement verbatim, it was so profound that I couldn't help but remember the gist of it.

Something that newly elected Democrats must remember is that we must deliver on our promises and not discount the will of our constituents. This election wasn't so much a mandate for the Democratic party as a vote against Republicans. They're not the same thing.

Truer words were never spoken. If I recall correctly, Demers also said something about that the Democratic party will ignore this at their own peril. After all, it's just as easy to be voted out as it is to be voted in. Easier, in fact.

11/06/2006

As I mentioned here, those negative campaign ads can be grating. They're always so...so negative. But have you ever wondered who it is that actually does the voice-overs for those ads? Well wonder no more.

One of the most telling segments of the interview was when the host asked one of them to take a simple nursery rhyme and turn it into a negative attack ad. One got right to the point.

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. He said he could put himself together again. But after wasting thousands of our tax dollars, all the King's horses and all the King's men, he failed us. Humpty Dumpty. Wrong on wall sitting.”

I will never be able to listen to that nursery rhyme again without thinking about this attack ad.

There are few more like the one above that show how easy it is to 'go negative'.

Listen to the whole thing as I think you'll find it amusing and educational at the same time.

11/05/2006

My only question is whether there will be other trials for the multiple murderous actions of the former Iraqi dictator, or whether he will swing at the end of a rope long before other trials could begin?

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BeezleBub voiced his displeasure at the breakfast table this morning about all of the campaign ads airing on radio and TV. As he said, “It's all a bunch of BS. I'll be glad once Tuesday gets here!”

That's one smart 12-year old.

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Even though the electioneering clamor will calm down after Tuesday's election, it won't stop for long. With the number of presidential hopefuls who showed up in the Granite State to campaign for their party's candidates, it portends a similar flood of wannabes looking to win their party's nomination for President.

While it won't be something that happens immediately, I expect that the full court press will start shortly New Year's Day, a full year before the first caucuses/primaries.

The New Hampshire Primary can't happen too soon for me.

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And speaking of primaries, it doesn't surprise me to learn that the Democrats didn't learn the lesson of the 2004 election: Front loading actually hurts their chances.

By front loading the primary and caucus schedule – lumping most of them together in the first three months of the year – only candidates with deep pockets can hope to compete. Those without the deep pockets get shoved aside, even someone who might be the Democrat's best hope. With few exceptions, the old fashioned face-to-face retail politicking can't be done in the short time the schedule allows. The campaigns become more about sound bites and 15 to 30 second TV and radio ads, something that takes large amounts of cash. Very few voters will actually get the chance to meet the candidates, to ask them tough questions, or take the measure of the man or woman asking for their vote.

The Democrat's last nominee, John Kerry, had the deepest pockets of all. He was also the worst possible candidate they could have chosen because he was so far out of touch with much of the American public and condescending to boot. Yet here they are, doing exactly the same thing again. I wonder how long it will take them to realize they're shooting themselves in the foot.

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Bruce of mAss Backwards is still house hunting in New Hampshire. This weekend he's come across a place that, as he says, could be “it”. There's even a picture included.

Nice place, Bruce!

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Both neo-neocon and Austin Bay have thoughts about John Kerry's latest slam against the military, the so-called “botched joke.” Little does he realize that the joke's on him.

A vain thin-skinned condescending blueblood with no sense of his own ridiculousness, Senator Nuancy Boy is secure in little else except his belief in his indispensability.

[...]

Whatever he may or may not have intended (and "I was making a joke about how stupid Bush is but I'm the only condescending liberal in America too stupid to tell a Bush-is-stupid joke without blowing it" must rank as one of the all-time lame excuses), what he said fits what too many upscale Dems believe: that America's soldiers are only there because they're too poor and too ill-educated to know any better. That's what they mean when they say "we support our troops." They support them as victims, as children, as potential welfare recipients, but they don't support them as warriors and they don't support the mission.

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It's half-time at the New England Patriots/Indianapolis Colts game. The Colts are up 17-14 at the half.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where preparations for Election Day abound, last minute work before winter arrives still needs doing, and where memories of this past winter are already fading....

If there was any doubt that the housing bubble has cooled, I think we can safely say that is no longer the case.

Many homes for sale in this area are now on the market for a considerably longer time, and of those many sellers have dropped their asking prices in an effort to sell their homes. The days of 12% to 18% annual appreciation in home values are over and more realistic prices are being seen. It is now a buyer's market and that is what's driving the drop in prices.

There's a hissing sound in the air as the balloon carrying the real estate bubble higher and higher seems to have developed a small leak and is gradually settling down from the giddy heights that it reached in the last few years.

Signs of the return to earth, or at least lower elevations, are abundant along the roadsides in the area where For Sale signs are more likely to say ``price reduced'' or ``newly priced'' rather than ``under agreement'' or ``sale pending.''

It is reported that average home prices have dropped between 8 and 10 percent in central New Hampshire compared to last year, showing a trend towards more realistic housing values. Not all segments of the housing market in New Hampshire have seen the drop in prices. Upscale homes in the $300K to $600K range are still selling well, though not at the rate they were last year.

From looking at a large number of present listings in central New Hampshire, it seems that homes are on the market for six months or more before selling. From my own observations I can say it seems that a large number are on the market for far longer than that. Many homes in my town alone have been on the market for a year or more. While some of these are seasonal homes, meaning that the pressure to sell isn't nearly as great as for someone selling a primary home, it is still indicative of a weakened housing market.

The housing bubble has indeed inflated and isn't much more than a memory.

11/03/2006

It's only a few more days until the elections and things have been heating up, particularly here in New Hampshire. While the gubernatorial race is pretty much a foregone conclusion, the two congressional races are close, with most polls showing them too close to call.

With few exceptions, almost all of the political ads here have gone negative.

According to an ABC News Tonight report (sorry, no link yet available), this is a nationwide trend, with a large majority of the political ads on TV and radio airing being negative. The ads aren't aimed at those voters that have already made up their minds. Instead, they are aimed at those few voters that have yet to decide. Those few undecideds can be the difference between a candidate winning or losing.

While negative ads can be informative, they too often skirt the edge of outright lies. The typical ad will inform the voting public that a candidate voted for or against some bill that their opponent would have voted differently. After recording a few of those ads, I looked closely at the bills referenced (most carried the bill numbers as part of the ad). In a few cases an officeholder voted against a bill they otherwise would have voted for because someone attached a rider to the legislation that would have authorized something the officeholder opposed. This forced the vote to kill an otherwise desirable piece of legislation. So sometimes we have to take claims by opponents with a grain of salt, even if they are factual. Even so, I know I'm getting tired of the negative ads.

11/02/2006

A new report was released this week that outlines the economic costs of global warming. The report, also known as the Stern Report, tries to lay out the costs of both putting an effort into reducing carbon emissions and of doing nothing. The problem is that the numbers in the report don't add up, in many cases understating both the costs of combating climate change and the time it will take to do so.

Also, global warming skeptic Bjorn Lomborg digs deeper into the numbers and shows that certain assumptions made in the 700 page Stern Report are either suspect or appear to made up out of thin air.

In any case the report will give both pro- and anti-global warming supporters plenty to talk about.

11/01/2006

Reading the many posts and comments about Kerry's gaffe makes me realize that Kerry's major error wasn't the 'poorly rendered joke', but rather his response to the outcry over his perceived insult to the men and women of the Armed Forces. If Senator Lurch had merely stated “Gee, I really screwed up that joke. I'm sorry if it offended anyone and offer my sincere apologies” this whole thing would have gone away. But his arrogance got the best of him and it wasn't until other Democrats called him on it that he tried to do some damage control.